Life in pictures - June-July-August

 I would have never imagined at the beginning of June how life has changed in only a few months. It certainly has had highs and lows. As my 365 Project reflects - one photo a day every day.  The project has sometimes been a challenge to take a photo every day.

Sometimes it is easy, sometimes my shots are planned, but often they are just a quick snapshot or a random shot on my way home from work!  But my friend has just wisely said to me -
Random shots of a moment in your life where every minute is as special as any other - nothing wrong with that!

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Blooming Art 2014 - Bunbury Regional Art Gallery, Western Australia

I was thrilled recently to be invited to be a Blooming Art Special Guest exhibitor at the floral art exhibition run annually by the Flower Designers Club of Bunbury in the beautiful Chapel Gallery at the Bunbury Regional Art Gallery.   I was invited by Blooming Art Coordinator, Eileen Wenn, who is a friend of mine from Spanish dance class, and who is also a world class floral art designer.

Special invited guest exhibitors select a painting from the City of Bunbury Art Collection, and then represent it through a floral display.  I have no floral art background or formal arts training, so felt very priviledged to be invited, as well as a little apprehensive and excited. 

The painting I chose which you can see below, is a painting by Alisa Small, called Up The Gorge to Tallering Peak.  I was attracted to this painting because we had just past through this area on our way south from the Pilbara.  I love the rich colours, textures and ruggedness of this ancient landscape and how the colours change with the light. Alisa has captured with her painting what I try to capture with my camera. 

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Pilbara camping - Part 3 - Karijini to Mt Augustus - Western Australia

Hi everyone, I hope you have enjoyed my last two posts about camping in Karijini National Park in Western Australia's Pilbara region. If you ever come to Western Australia, and have time, you should visit, particularly if you are here around July-August.
If you missed the posts you can catch up here -  Karijini Camping - Part 1
 and here - Karijini camping - Part 2


Today we are back on the road again, heading out of Karijini and heading towards Mount Augustus - the world's largest monocline.
But first the town of Tom Price - 108km from the Karijini's Dales Gorge campground.
We need to fuel up and buy some fresh supplies for the next leg of our trip, plus a quick email catch up and mail some post cards.

Situated on the edge of the Hamersley Ranges, Tom Price is Western Australia's highest town, 747metres above sea level. Tom Price's economy is dependent on the iron ore industry. The area was only appraised for mining in the early 1960's, so Tom Price is a very young town.  

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Karijini camping - part 2 - Pilbara, Western Australia

Last week I brought you the first part of our recent Pilbara trip, visiting Karijini National Park. If you missed it you can catch up by clicking here - Pilbara camping in Karijini Naitonal Park

Today we travel across the park to Joffre, Knox, Hancock, Weano and Hamersley Gorges and to Mount Bruce. 


The Joffre Falls and the Weano Gorge area is about 30 kilometres west of the Karijini Visitor Centre.  As we had stayed such a long time at Kalamina Gorge (see last week's post), and, I must admit, the fact that I don't feel so confident about clambering down gorge walls these days, we decided for this trip we would just go to the lookouts of the gorges on the western side of the park.  You can't help but be impressed by this awe inspiring landscape. The gorges dramatically show the forces of nature that carved these gorges into the landscape millions of years ago. 

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Pilbara camping in Karijini National Park, Western Australia

Getting ready for a camping holiday always involves a bit (or a lot) of planning. 

There is the camper trailer to check over and make sure everything is in it that needs to be. There are lists to be made and ticked off, a rough plan of where we are going drawn up, meals to plan and cooking, dehydrating and food shopping to to be done, our vehicle to be checked over and the extra spare tyre to be hauled onto the roof, washing done and clothes packed, organise someone to collect the mail and put out the rubbish bins.

 Ooooo....there seems to be a lot of chocolate in there! Oh well you have to have some little luxuries when you are camping in the bush.

But finally we are on our way and as the sun comes up over the road ahead we sigh a sigh of contentment. 

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Everlasting magic - midwest Western Australia

We have been away for the last 2 weeks travelling and camping in our Pilbara and Mid-West region through Karijini National Park, Mt Augustus, Kennedy Ranges and Coalseam. The wildflowers particularly on our way south between Murchison and Mullewa in the Mid-West region were starting to come into bloom. The everlasting wildflowers were opening their white, pink and yellow faces, and spreading across the red dust like a carpet through the trees as far as you could see. It is hard to show you how magnificent there were.

 Those of you who have stopped by my blog from time to time will have seen my white everlastings images that have gone through several transformations the last couple of years.  Everlastings have papery petals and if you pick them and dry them upside down they can last for years.

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Winter soup warmers in my winter garden

It is winter here in Western Australia. I went around my garden this morning and snapped some pics to show you. It is actually looking very green at the moment... 

In my front garden the last few roses are blooming, the hydrangeas are shooting, the lavender is pushing up a few flower heads, some winter bulbs are coming up, and the gorgeous Strelitzia (Bird of Paradise) growing by my neighbour's front driveway is really spectacular. The yellow flower you see in the top row is Hibbertia - a Western Australian native. 

In the back garden, 

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Lyndendale in the winter, Ferguson Valley, Western Australia

Today I am sharing some images from around the grounds of beautiful Lyndendale Gallery along Crooked Brook Road near Dardanup where I have been running a basics photography workshop. Last Saturday was mostly theory, and yesterday afternoon was practical - taking pics around the garden.

Lyndendale is such a wonderful creative, peaceful and supportive environment. Thank you Denise for the opportunity to run my photography workshops at Lyndendale.

How about a sit on the porch?

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Making Anzac biscuits & my week in pictures

Last Anzac Day, 25 April, I realised that I hadn't made Anzac biscuits for years.  I mentioned it on my blog post on Anzac Day - you can see it here - 25 April-Anzac Day-We will remember them

So a couple of weekends ago when my grandson came for a sleep over I decided to make Anzacs with him. He loves cooking.

Anzacs are a traditional Australian family favourite biscuit. Everyone has their own ideas as to whether they should be crunchy or soft. I remember great trays of crunchy Anzacs coming out of the oven of my Aunt's wood stove. They waft out a delicious smell through the kitchen.

Here is my Aunt's recipe - she called them "John Bulls" - maybe from the brand of oats she used. 

Mix together 1 cup rolled oats, 
1 cup dessicated coconut, 
1 cup plain flour, 
1/2 cup sugar.  

Melt 125gm butter or margarine. 
Stir in 2 heaped tablespoons of Golden Syrup. D
issolve  1 1/2 teaspoons bi-carb soda in 2-3 tablespoons boiling water.
 Mix into the butter mixture. Pour into the dry ingredients and mix in well. 

Place flattened balls of mixture onto you baking tray. Baking paper works well. Leave room for spreading. 

Now here is the tricky part. My aunt cooked in a wood stove, so I really have no idea what temperature. It was amazing the sponges and cooking she pulled out of that oven. 
A recent recipe book says: Cook in a slow oven (150-170C) for about 20 minutes. So I suggest try that.

Cool on a wire rack. 

According to the Australian War Memorial website it is unknown how Anzac biscuits got their name or how they came to be a traditional biscuit to make on Anzac Day. 

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Autumn days of May in Western Australia

 May was a hectic month, especially the last few weeks. Some aspects have been purely creative pursuits, and this last week has been elderly parent concerns.

Those of you who stop by my blog regularly might know that I have been doing a 365 project this year - one photo a day for a year. Sometimes this is easy for me, sometimes I take time over taking images, other times not so easy and I just snap a pic on my way home from work, just to get a pic. 

 I thought for today's post I will show you the autumn days of May - and looking at all the yellow and orange it certainly does look like autumn - although we don't get the autumn leaf fall that is common in the northern hemisphere. In Australia our trees are "evergreen", that is, green all year.   If we see any autumn leaf colour we know it is an introduced tree.

Lets start with Flamenco! and our beautiful teacher Nicole from Sol y Sombra Spanish Dance Company when the company danced for an art group in Busselton - Sol-y-Sombra on Facebook  I love the movement and swirl in this image

The on-line web based collage program - Picmonkey - crops the images a bit, but you will get the idea I hope.

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